We've all still got a lot to learn, and what with the cynicism (realism?) of the moment, it's hard at times to stay open to things. But Lewis Hine's street kids show a lot of pluck, and they remind me that that was once an element in the national character. Sometimes that's hard to remember, amid a "political climate" like that of the present, when there appear to be a fair share of alleged adults who would hand over the controls of government to the likes of that billionaire who last year gave the Mormon church more money than he gave the government in taxes, or, yegads! the angry Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

Lewis Hine was a sociologist and a teacher who started out with photojournalism as a teaching tool. He gave this country a lot, his work was instrumental in getting child labor laws passed, and later on he did great work for the WPA. I think of his photographs as a kind of epic novel; he was the Dickens our literature never produced. And he came to such a sad end, couldn't get funding for his work from the corporations or, finally, the government; became destitute, lost his home and went on welfare before he died, almost forgotten. The Museum of Modern Art actually turned down the offered donation of his prints (the bulk of which finally ended up instead at the George Eastman House).

As I say, he thought of art as a teaching tool, and I suppose that's not the modern (or post- or post- post-post modern) way. But I still learn a lot from it every time I return, which is often. But then, I am... old.

You're right about these kids and their pluck and about it rapidly fading--and not just from the American national character--we can see the same signs over here--here, where some sixty plus years ago kids like these were stealing from the Germans to escape starving to death.

I see a lot of this kind of trash diving (recycling it is, after all), these nights, but not being undertaken with quite so much pluck, nor with any smiles at all, and not being done by little children but by fully-grown, desperate American adults.

Steve, interesting this --"...pull on the heartstrings. Lewis Hine's work quite different from Vachon's, Delano's and all, don't you think?" -- certainly Hine does not exercise the kind of cool ironic distancing we see, for example, in John Vachon; but then again, here, the use of scale, framing the very small child subjects in larger spaces that dwarf and threaten them, does provide another kind of distancing effect.

Brilliant work with one or two positively beatific smiles. The film poster in the last struck me and so I looked it up and found Mr Hine was adding still another dimension to his photo. Here's the plot summary from, of all places, MTV's website:

"The Crab is sourpuss Frank Keenan, who lives alone and likes it. At least, he thinks he likes it, until cherubic little orphan Thelma Salter enters his life. Slowly but very surely, curly-headed Salter softens Keenan's hard heart. This old-fashioned yarn was done up brown by the florid subtitles of scenarist... C. Gardner Sullivan. Thelma Salter managed to enjoy a ten-year career in Shirley Temple-style roles; either she was very short or a victim of arrested development." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Little urchins digging through the vast crumbs of industry: neatly sawn planks, lots of dusty paper, small bits of wire or folded metal. Bottles? Cans? Not really seen. I thinkI see my motherand my grandmotherwhen they were young and younger. I see their hair and their clothingnests for dust, a dusty past. What are they digging for? What did they find? I know my momand her gang in Kempten ran after the American soldiers and grabbed their gum wrappers, chocolate bar wrappers and held them up to their noses--

How Truth Appears

I. The Juice That Dries Instantly

The secret mystery writing appearswhen held over the toaster.The words look a lot different than before.There could have been a lot more of them.The words look ancient but polite. They say:more warmth, more heat, I want a dollar.This is the first present I give to my mother.She takes it and kisses me lightly beforetelling me the story about when she was littlegrowing up after the war with no parentsbecause of the bombthat went through the greenhouse.She’s alive because she was awaythat day. It was long ago.

II. My Mom And The Rubble

Somehow she lived through those first four daysknowing her parents were dead and buried. I call themthe forest days in toothpick terms. I run out the doorfrom kindergarten every time she tells me the story. I look at the crater for her. I see legs sticking out of the chunks of plaster and I see boulders of concrete with handkerchiefssnagged on them. I see everything looking old and brokenwhen actually it was new. I listenfor something in her voice

to tell me what it was likeand she tells me about the soldiers—the ones who threw down their candy wrappers.The gang would hold them up to their noses,sniff deeply, taste the flavor of chocolate—the only air around that didn’t smell like rubble.

III. The War Orphans From Germany

It wasn’t me. It was her. She has told the story many times.Until she starts to cry. Until I press her feet togetherso they’ll get warm. So she knows, remembers about walkingand going. I get up from the couch and take a few stepsto the TV to turn it off but she tells me to make it louderand to stir the lemonade in her glass. Her favorite, Pavarotti,is singing. She presses the glass to her cheek.Tells me to beware of mermaids. She barely says itbut I know that she did. It was something someone told her once.

Her eyes are aligned with the glassand her hand swirls it just a little bit. Her eyes

look sea sick as they look at me. Brown pools like potholesin a dirt road. They close and I know she’s far off,far from me and this house and this couch. She’s farfrom her voice and her mouth. She’s far from the story about the bomb. It’s dropped onto my head again.It explodes alone in my heart as I wait for more talk.